


Can't believe I love you

by laheysmythes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Soulmates, Thiam Week, but not really?, it ends with a happy ending, no character death!!! no one dies ain't nobody got time for angst today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 03:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laheysmythes/pseuds/laheysmythes
Summary: Liam doesn't believe in soulmates, never has.But one day he mysteriously wakes up with a tattoo in his arm, and Mason tells him that when that happens it's because those are the last words your soulmate will say to you right before they die.So, naturally, all Liam had to do was stop Theo from ever speaking them and they'll be fine, right?





	Can't believe I love you

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [Non posso credere che ti amo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778905) by [Ili91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ili91/pseuds/Ili91)



Liam never believed in soulmates. He thought it was just a myth from people that were extremely in love with someone, or from people that were single and said  _ ‘I’m waiting for my soulmate’ _ to excuse themselves. He didn’t believe in ‘red strings of fate’, or ‘meant to be’ or anything like it.

However, Liam was a superstitious person. A very superstitious person even if he tried to hide it.

One morning when he was taking a shower after a particular night where he didn’t recall most of what happened, he noticed a small tattoo with the phrase  _ “Can’t believe I love you”  _ written faintly in his left arm. He was so confused by it, and tried to scrub really hard to remove it because he thought it had been written with sharpie. It didn’t come off.

Scared, because as far as his knowledge would go, werewolves couldn’t really get tattoos because they healed. And even if he could he didn’t remember ever stepping into a tattoo parlor to get one? How in the hell did he end up with one?

Confused and expecting answers, he called Mason so he’d meet him up at his house. As if on cue, twenty minutes later he arrived with Corey as company.

“What’s up man? Something wrong?” Mason asked Liam.

“I woke up with a tattoo…” Liam said confused like he was still trying to process that. He looked down at his arm to check if it was still there and that he hadn’t imagined it. Yes, it was still there.

Mason and Corey looked between one another as if they knew more information that they would let on.

“Werewolves can’t get tattoos Liam,” Corey said.

“But it’s here!” Liam pulled up the long sleeve and showed his arm to Corey and Mason. “How do you explain this?!”

Mason and Corey looked at Liam’s arm, both saying  _ “Oh,” _ in unison as if they had realized something. A couple of minutes later after some internal debating, Mason finally spoke.

“Liam, have you ever heard about soulmates?” Mason started in a serious tone, while Corey was silent, his expression unreadable.

“Soulmates doesn’t exist, why do you bring that up?” Liam said, kind of annoyed.

“Yeah right, like werewolves aren’t supposed to exist,” Mason rolled his eyes and Liam kept quiet. He had a point, but still he refused to believe in soulmates.

“What does that have to do with this tattoo?” Liam asked yet again.

“Well, story has it that sometimes a tattoo will suddenly appear in your arm with the last words your soulmate will ever say to you, right before they die,” Mason explained while trying his best to keep a normal expression.

Liam narrowed his eyes. “You’re telling me that as soon as my ‘soulmate’ says these words to me they’ll just drop dead?”

“That’s the story, yes,” Mason nodded, lips formed in a straight line.

“Right....” Liam said, still questioning the reasoning behind it. However, even if he didn’t believe in soulmates, there was a part of him in his brain that kept itching, already feeling like it could be a possibility. Like this could become true just like the saying that if you walk under a ladder you’ll get bad luck. Sometimes he wished his brain wouldn’t be like this, that he wouldn’t be superstitious because he was sure that Mason’s words would keep playing and playing again in his head.

And it did. No matter how dumb the idea of soulmates was to Liam, he continued to be afraid that it could happen. He forgot about it for a while, until he finally started dating someone.

He had started dating Theo a year after the war was over, too many fights and unresolved tension later. It had taken them quite long because even though they were pining for one another, neither of them wanted to say anything, afraid it was going to be unrequited.

The day they had admitted their feelings for one another, it had been in a yelling match. Liam had been so frustrated that Theo just kept looking at him and hanging around and he just  _ liked him too much _ but was so frustrated that he couldn’t tell him because Theo probably didn’t feel the same.

But it all changed when he learned Theo did.

“Have you  _ really _ been this blind, Liam?” Theo yelled back at one of Liam’s rants asking him why he was there with him still to this day. “It’s because I  _ like you _ , Liam! I’ve been by your side mostly ever since I came back from hell, I stayed with you!”

“You… you like me?” Liam raised his eyebrows, clearly in shock. 

Theo smirked. “Wow, can’t believe I lov-”

As if on reflex, as soon as Theo started to say those words, his arm itched reminding him of the long forgotten tattoo.  _ The words. _

Liam wasn’t about to risk it so as a reflex, his fist connected with Theo’s nose, stopping him from talking before he finished his sentence.

“Ow! What the fuck was that for?” Theo yelped in pain, he had gotten a broken nose after all.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry! I panicked,” Liam said, taking Theo’s hands away from his nose to see how much damage he had done.

Well, yes, Theo had a broken nose but at least he hadn’t died,  _ right? _

Liam should count it as a win.

\---

They had been dating for three years now. They moved into their own apartment after Liam decided to move for college, Theo worked in a library nearby while Liam dedicated himself to study.  However, throughout all these three years, Theo hadn’t said ‘ _ I love you’ _ to Liam. Well, more like Liam hadn’t let him finish saying it.

Liam always concealed the tattoo, not letting Theo see it. He wanted to forget it, even went to a tattoo parlor to get it covered but it had healed. Those five words still burned deep in his arm, the unfriendly reminder with him at all times. If he hadn’t been afraid of fire, he’d have gotten it covered with a tattoo made that way, like Scott did with his two bands around his arm.

It was getting quite comical seeing Liam struggle to find excuses to make Theo shut up just in time before he said anything.

Once it was Theo’s birthday and Liam managed to bake him a cake. With the icing, he wrote two sentences, the first one in blue saying ‘ _ happy 22nd birthday Theo’ _ and the second one in red saying  _ ‘happy 4th birthday after coming back from hell _ ’ because of course he would’ve. Theo just rolled his eyes, but still he appreciated the cake.

“A hell joke. Ha ha. Can’t believe I lo-” Theo deadpanned and Liam panicked once again, pushing the cake in front of Theo’s face to get him to stop talking.

“Surprise?” Liam said awkwardly, realizing he had ruined the cake and managed to annoy Theo. He didn’t care, at least there wasn’t any risk of Theo dying.

In total, Theo had tried 9 times in their entire relationship to say  _ ‘I love you’. _ Out of all those times, Liam had managed to punch him 4 times (because they had been fighting and he used that as an excuse), kissed him 3 times (he blamed it on the heat of the moment afterwards), 1 time with the cake to the face (Theo made him bake a new cake after), and the last time Liam had yelled so loudly without explanation, but it had startled Theo so badly that he forgot what he was saying.

One day though, Liam hadn’t been fast enough to stop him. They were talking about literature, and Liam had insulted one of Theo’s favorite books, making the chimera get somewhat offended.

“Wow, even though you insult my favorite books, I can’t believe I love you,” Theo rolled his eyes and kept reading his book.

However, on the other side of the room, Liam had frozen, his plate with food falling from his hands into the floor, shattering into a bunch of tiny pieces.

“What?” Theo looked at Liam, confused as to why he dropped the plate. 

“Oh no. Shit, oh no,  _ no, _ ” Liam was getting more nervous and panicked within the minute and he started picking up all the pieces, injuring his hands in the process, but he continued to pick up shards of glass to throw them in the trashcan as he kept saying  _ ‘no’ _ over and over again.

“Hey Liam, what’s wrong?” Theo went and kneeled to his side, Liam was ignoring him.

“Fuck, why did you say that!” Liam yelled, getting up and leaving the remaining glass on the floor. 

“Say what? That I love you?” Theo asked and Liam shrieked. “What’s wrong with that?!”

“That you’re gonna die!” Liam yelled, leaving Theo with an even more shocked and incredulous expression than before.

“That I’m going to  _ what? _ ” Theo exclaimed.

Liam pulled up his arm and rubbed off the concealer with his bloodied hands to reveal the bit faded out tattoo with the same words Theo had said minutes ago.

“This tattoo is why I kept shutting you up every time you tried to say that, because I didn’t want you to die! I don’t believe in that soulmates shit but-” 

“Wait, hold up,  _ soulmates? _ ” Theo looked like he was having a field day with all of this information.

“This tattoo is supposed to be the last words that my soulmate will ever say to me before they, you know, die,” Liam paused and Theo was fully laughing.

“Liam, who told you that?” Theo said between laughs.

“Mason did! And I don’t know why you find it so goddamn funny, asshole, considering it’s your life on the line” Liam said, glaring at Theo and he crossed his arms, still kinda pissed over the whole tattoo thing and how he wasn’t taking it serious at all.

“Do you even remember  _ anything _ of the night you got that tattoo?” Theo asked him without laughing.

“No I didn’t get it, it just appeared all of a sudden.”

“Tattoos can’t appear out of thin air.”

“Well this one did!” Liam exclaimed, but he was starting to doubt the logic behind that.

“You did get it Liam. It was the night we stole those herbs from Deaton and tried to get drunk. Well, tried is an understatement, because  _ you did get _ blackout drunk. Before you passed out though, we ended up in a tattoo shop, and you were so stubborn you wanted to get a tattoo. And it healed on its own before your werewolf powers managed to come back, making it stay,” Theo pointed out at Liam’s arm.

“I don’t remember any of this,” Liam said, trying to remember anything, but no he didn’t.

“Blackout drunk, Liam. You blacked out,” Theo emphasized.

Liam narrowed his eyes and he pulled out his phone from his pocket, dialing Mason.

“Hey man, how’s it go-” Mason was cut off by an impatient Liam.

“Hey, are you gonna tell me now how I  _ really _ got my tattoo?” Liam said trying not to sound too angry.

Mason sighed on the other line. “Yes, I might have lied, BUT the original story was far more embarrassing so I decided to go with the soulmate story. Why? Please tell me you didn’t believe the soulmate story.”

Liam was radio silent at that point.

“You did. Oh my god,” Mason said and he started laughing. Seconds later, he tried to control himself after Liam cleared his throat. “Look man, that night the three of you got really drunk, but you did the most, and you wanted to get a tattoo so badly. So we ended up there, you went on a ramble on how you didn’t have werewolf powers now so it couldn’t heal, you ended up getting a tattoo, and also you threw up on Theo’s shoes.”

“So why didn’t you just tell me that?” Liam asked, quite annoyed.

“Because one, you had been a pain in my ass all night, you’re the worst when you’re drunk, I say that as your best friend,” Mason started and Liam rolled his eyes. “And second, because of the sentence in the tattoo.”

“Why? Who picked it?” Liam asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“You did. Ask your boyfriend about it,” Mason said in a knowing tone and hung up.

Liam turned to look at Theo, he looked like he had more questions than answers now. 

“Mason just told me to ask you about what the tattoo means,” Liam said, it sounded more like a question than a statement. Theo sighed.

“That night we were drunk, alright? As soon as you finished your tantrum on why you wanted a tattoo, you threw up in my shoes at the tattoo shop. I… might have blurted out that sentence and you said you were going to get it tattooed. I think Mason tried to convince you otherwise but you threatened him,” Theo said, quite embarrassed with telling the story.

“So those were your exact words after all?” Liam questioned, still trying to process everything.

“It seemed like they have been all this time,” Theo agreed. “Four years later and I’m still not dead, right?”

Liam had this look on his face like his entire life had been a lie. Or well, at least the past four years he had been living one, because he was so worried the soulmates thing was true that he went out of his way to stop anything bad from happening. Oh, and Theo wasn’t going to let that go so easily.

“It’s cute that even though you say you don’t believe in soulmates, you still thought I was yours,” Theo teased him with a playful smirk on his lips.

“I  _ don’t. _ Soulmates are a  _ lie, _ ” Liam said stubbornly.

“You kinda did though, after all you spent four years believing I’d die all of a sudden if I told you that I love you,” Theo shrugged and it still felt weird hearing him say that without automatically having to punch him to shut him up. 

“Now  _ I’m _ the one who can’t believe that I’m in love with you,” Liam rolled his eyes and walked towards their room to change his bloody clothes, not minding the glass and stepping over it with his shoes, making an even bigger mess that he left for Theo to clean it up as payback.

It took him a while, but now when he looked at the tattoo he smiled fondly, because it reminded him of Theo. Soulmates or not, he loved him despite the fact that still to this day, Theo managed to push his buttons like nobody else did. And he’d push right back, and that was them. That was enough for Liam.

**Author's Note:**

> Just like Liam, I don't believe in that soulmates thing, and I'm not a big fan of the trope, BUT this idea came to me when a friend brought up she was reading a soulmates fic where you get the last sentence your soulmate will ever say to you, but those always end in character death and ain't nobody got time for that, so I wrote this with this plot twist.
> 
> You can take it as you want, maybe they are soulmates, just the tattoo thing doesn't count haha.
> 
> This isn't my best fic (I was doubting whether to post it or not but it was complete so I ended up posting it in the end), but oh well. I have two more for thiam week but I'm hoping to finish sometime this week!  
> -Alejandra


End file.
